Think about preparing these things now. You will most likely need them this winter.

Herbal Academy has a lot of great content and advice for natural healing and health.

Recipe for meatless Fridays

Pumpkin Pie Crisp

Pumpkin Filling
1 (15-oz.) canned pumpkin purée
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup heavy cream

Cinnamon Streusel
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons butter, melted

Topping
Vanilla Ice Cream

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter a 12-inch cast iron skillet or a medium casserole dish. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and vanilla extract. Whisk in heavy cream until smooth. Pour into prepared skillet and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add melted butter and stir with a fork until crumbly. (Can also beat with a hand mixer until crumbly if needed).

Spread streusel topping on top of pumpkin pie mixture in an even layer.

Bake until the filling is set and the top is golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool and top with ice cream.

Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the Church seems too artistic. When you quarrel with us now you class us with kingship and despotism; but when you quarrelled with us first it was because we would not accept the divine despotism of Henry VIII. The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue

GK Chesterton

@CatholicArena

"Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice."

"Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision."

~Erich Fromm

“When pregnant, the cells of the baby migrate into the mothers bloodstream and then circle back into the baby, it’s called “fetal-maternal microchimerism”.⁠

For 41 weeks, the cells circulate and merge backwards and forwards, and after the baby is born, many of these cells stay in the mother’s body, leaving a permanent imprint in the mothers tissues, bones, brain, and skin, and often stay there for decades. Every single child a mother has afterwards will leave a similar imprint on her body, too.

Even if a pregnancy doesn't go to full term or if you have an abortion, these cells still migrate into your bloodstream.

Research has shown that if a mother's heart is injured, fetal cells will rush to the site of the injury and change into different types of cells that specialize in mending the heart.

The baby helps repair the mother, while the mother builds the baby.

How cool is that?

This is often why certain illnesses vanish while pregnant.

It’s incredible how mothers bodies protect the baby at all costs, and the baby protects & rebuilds the mother back - so that the baby can develop safely and survive.

Think about crazy cravings for a moment. What was the mother deficient in that the baby made them crave?

Studies have also shown cells from a fetus in a mothers brain 18 years after she gave birth. How amazing is that?”

If you’re a mom you know how you can intuitively feel your child even when they are not there….Well, now there is scientific proof that moms carry them for years and years even after they have given birth to them.

Baccharis trimera, a medicinal plant widely used and known for its digestive, antibiotic and depurative properties. It grows about a meter high and is ideal to have in the garden to decorate, and to use.

It is prepared in an infusion.

Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. (...) How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

G.K. Chesterton.

Us women should -more than anything- be humble, submissive and modest. All these three qualities Our Lady excelled at. She, should always be our role model in every aspect of our lives: as daughters, mothers, friend...

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!” – “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands

These are the words which resonate throughout the Church on this day, The Solemnity of Christ the King. The Church calls upon all Catholics to remember Christ's universal Kingship. He is our Lord and Saviour, the only One worthy of our praise and adoration, as it is he that gives sense to our very existence. This feast reminds us he is not only our King but the King of all things, visible and invisible. So pray on this day: Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

“Oh, if only you could know how harsh the pains of Purgatory are, you would much sooner choose to have all the wars, famines, and plagues of this life come down on you than to remain in those torments of Purgatory.”

- Girolamo Savonarola

Freezing common vegetables is really easy!

Onions — easiest because it's just peel, chop, freeze. They will freeze into a big mass. I just hack off what I need for a soup or a skillet and throw them in. You can freeze them in small bags by serving size, if you like. 1 cup at a time.

Carrots, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes are about the same process.
1) peel and chop
2) blanche
3) ice bath
4) freeze

Blanche simply means to boil briefly. The times for each vegetable are below.

Ice Bath:
cold water with floating ice cubes.
Ice bath your blanched veg for an equal amount of time as you blanched.

Freeze:
to avoid having a giant mass of vegetables frozen together and, instead, have individual vegetable pieces, you can pre-freeze right after your ice bath. Just lay out single layers of your blanched/ice bathed veg and freeze them until hard, then put them in the bag.

Use high quality/thick zipper bags or vacuum sealer.

Any kind of potatoes:
—blanche 3-5 minutes for small (1.5" or smaller) or 8-10 for large
—they will last longest if you boil them until tender and then proceed to ice bath

Carrots:
—"baby carrots" are a variety of carrot which doesn't freeze as well as full size carrots
— cut your carrots into 1/4" coins and blanch for 2 minutes

Broccoli and Cauliflower:
—chop florets apart
—stems: peel off the tough outer skin and chop into 1/2" thick pieces
—3 minutes boil/blanche or 5 minutes steamer

Recipe for meatless Friday:

Sucre a la Creme

There are many different versions/variations.

Basically you can do a recipe like this:

1 cup of heavy cream
1 cup of sugar (technically it really should be brown but cane sugar or white sugar should also work but the flavour will probably be different)

You put them together and cook them on medium heat stirring occasionally till it reaches softball stage. 235 degrees F. If you haven't a thermometer letting it boil for a minute or so should be good. Or the olden day method of testing for soft ball stage was to put a spoonful of the mixture into cold water and if it stays a soft ball, it is at that stage.

At this point you can use it just as a sauce for cake, bread, whatever. You can take it further though and get out the beater beating it till it is creamy. You can leave it plain or add nuts and stuff, pour it into a tray that has been buttered and let it cool in the freezer. It will be a chewy sweet toffee you can eat straight or put on stuff.

Now you can take it one step further (I have never done so) I am not sure the exact process but you cook it longer and hotter, then pour it out into the tray and it should harden into a crumbly fudge like candy which you can cut into squares.

Mothers do not belong in the workforce.